Wednesday, 16 December 2015

I recently have been very inspired by fashion illustration and thought I would share one of my favourite artists. The first is the work of Sarah Hankinson. Her work is very well known and has been used in various fashion magazines, home ware magazines as well as producing her own blog where she posts recent work as well as commissioned products, such as paintings, calendars and diaries. She uses pencil and watercolours for her work to create detailed drawings, with painted garments and colour detailing on the illustrations. Below is some of my favourite work by her.

Tuesday, 15 December 2015

I set to the internet to do some researching on upcoming trends for Autumn/ Winter 2016, and to explore what themes and colour schemes would suit my final chosen brand; Gucci. In addition I have decided to complete a menswear digital print range; looking at existing collections and creating a new one that would be suited to this brand. Trend forecasting is readily available on branded sites such as WGSN, Trend Zoom and also Pantone - who source and select the hottest colour swatches of the upcoming season.

Due to creating my prints for A/W I decided to go for a Nordic Landscape inspiration using the theme of Escapism and Water as key inspiration. I love the idea of incorporating the several formations of water, from research images of the sea, to snow to ice. There is a poetic nature with a sense of surrealism used by René Magritte in the 20th century) and serving as inspiration here. Clouds are included in art installations, photography and fashion shows in an unexpected way and i would like to experiment with imagery and textures visualised.

I played on the idea of nature and the environment for my main source of inspiration, as Gucci frequently use primary images of plants and flowers for their digital prints. With the colour palette being mainly lighter hues of blues, purples and greys,I focused on key imagery of the sea, ice and snow. I created a Pinterest Board (linked here) based around my inspiration for the print designs.

Tuesday, 8 December 2015

With the briefing of my new unit complete, I am very excited to get started on the digital 'side' of the first year course. As the end result will be 6 complete samples of digitally printed jersey and silk with a publication portfolio displaying our work process. The starting point is to explore existing high fashion brands that predominately use digital printed garments in their collections.

MARY KATRANTZOU:

Most famously known for her vivid, bold colour clashing choices, she is renowned for the Spring/Summer collections, which she focuses on floral prints with heavy embellishment detail. Her colour palettes are beautiful as she is not afraid to clash tones and contrasting patterns to create stunning print designs. Her feminine outlook is clearly seen in her collections and are incredibly popular in the celebrity culture. Her inspiration is mainly from natural resources such as plants and flowers however in her A/W 13 collection she has heavily inspired by architecture such as high blocks of flats as well as Japanese-esque landscapes.

ERDEM:

Erdem Moralioglu launched his own label in 2005, creating a ready-to-wear brand that consists of experimental textiles with vibrant prints and detailed craftsmanship. His style is versatile but incredibly feminine, and works by mixing the bold with delicacy of using silk printed fabric. He thrives on the manipulation of images based on nature such as plants and flowers, but edits and distorts the image to appear slightly obfuscated patterns. he once said in an article with The Independent; "I want to recreate the idea of movement and memory on a train". I believe this is clearly displayed in his work.

PETER PILOTTO:

I decided to research into Peter Pilotto as his final collections re incredibly different to the two other brands shown above. His inspiration for the collections may be seen as derived from similar sources such as nature and the environment, however the approach in print is opposing. The use of a wider range of vivid colours is apparent as well as the geometric line and body contours to draw attention to areas of the body as well as accentuating others. I have absolutely fallen in love with his work however due to the extensive variations I feel the fluidity of his work produced would be challenging to replicate.

I feel i have swayed closer to the brand Erdem as I find the initial process of his print creations inspiring and is something I would like to experiment with and create my own print. If possible I am planning on creating a Menswear line of digital prints inspired by this brand as Erdem is currently a Womenswear brand only. I think this will be interesting to look into as this will be my first menswear trial and I am thoroughly looking forward to see my future outcome! Let me know what you think about the above brands, and if there are any inspirations you don't mind sharing.

Monday, 7 December 2015

It's been a long time since I've posted on my blog but I think a quick catch-up is well deserved... In September (which seems like years ago now) I moved down to Bournemouth to start my first year at university a week later. I am now a proud fresher of Arts University Bournemouth, otherwise known as AUB for short. I am doing a three year Fashion BA Hons degree, which I am currently loving even with the amount of stress and pressure to succeed and achieve, against such creative and talented students. The uni itself is an 'Arts' uni which means all the courses available at the university are art based; such as illustration, photography, make-up, interior design and architecture.

I am living in the brand new Halls of Residence which is a short five/ten minute walk from the town centre (perfect for nights out!!) I share a flat with seven other girls - surprisingly we all get on so well and have become great friends in such a short amount of time.

My course has roughly 80 students on my year, where we are split into four sub groups, each named after fashion capitals - Milan, Paris, New York and London. Two groups at a time do one side of the course whilst the other two groups do the other side of the course. Each 'side' of the course consists of two units which run simultaneously alongside one another and unfortunately have the same deadline day *crying face*. Last week I completed my first hand-in which was the 'Creative' units- a very stressful build up due to the insane amount of work due. One unit consisted of designing and producing a white shirt which was influenced by a theme of choice; I chose futuristic architecture. The other unit was based around designing a 50 outfit collection with a final 6 design lineup. Each unit consisted of producing an 800 word essay, a sketchbook for each plus extra bodies of work!!! Below are some images from both of these units:

Above is my toile prototype for my white shirt

Above is my final layout manual for my final 6 outfits.

I am very pleased with my work that i have produced and am very excited to begin my new two units which as based on digital fashion/printing and new technologies this week. I hope to post more in the forthcoming months to follow my progress with uni work as well as new fashion related posts! Feel free to ask any questions.

Thursday, 23 July 2015

On our last night in Zante, we chose to find a nice restaurant where we could dress up a little more and end our last full day on a high. We walked along the beach till we found a restaurant and when we did, we were so glad we found it. The bar/ restaurant overlooked the beach and was pretty much entirely based outside, with wooden beams acting as the roof with lights hanging from these beams. We had a mango cocktail which was very nice but so strong with alcohol that it lasted us the entire meal! We all spoke about our peak memories and pit memories (something we stole from watching the Kardashians haha!!) and reminised over our amazing holiday. At the end of the meal fire works were let off further down the beach, however we managed to capture a quick photo and pretended they were for us, ahah! I wore a bright lime/yellow bodycon dress that I found in the Miss Selfridge sale a few days before I flew out to Zante. I wore my hair straight and pinned back a bit, and my makeup ready for the night out after the meal.(see below photos for what we got up to after the final meal...)

After our meal we quickly rushed back to our hotel to get dressed into something more appropriate for the Rescue Club Paint Party!! We were provided with tops for the paint party which we all cut up - cutting off the sleeves which made the arm holes larger and then cut along the neckline to make that drop more. I purposefully selected a larger size top anyway so I could tie it at the side to make it slightly cropped. Underneath the top I wore my fake Triangl bikini top that I bought off eBay. It only cost me around £4 so I wasn't fussed if it got stained from the paint, and thought the paint may wash out easier from a bikini material compared to a bra. I wore an old pair of denim shorts that I bought 2 years ago from Matalan so again I wasn't fussed if they got ruined. I wore my trust black jelly shoes as I find them incredibly comfortable and knew the paint would easily wash off. The paint party was such a great night to end our holiday on and we got absolutely covered in paint!! In addition it was UV paint so the photos below don't show off the paint to its full potential!! Overall I had the most amazing time in Zante with my friends and am wishing everyday I could go back. I would thoroughly recommend to anyone contemplating on going on a girls holiday to jump at the opportunity as it was a holiday full of laughter, fun and partying hard!!

Sunday, 19 July 2015

Before we flew out to Zante we desperately wanted to go to a white party on the X-isle island in Zante, however tickets were 50 euro and we couldn't justify spending 400 euro between us for one night out. Instead we opted to go to a full moon party which was just a fraction of the price- and I still managed to get wear out of pre-planned white party outfit (yaayyy!) The full moon party was held at sizzle club for pre-drinks and then we all moved to Cherry Bay Club which was placed on the beach. The club had fire dancers on the beach and drinks were in buckets to continue with the beach theme. I wore my white lace playsuit with my black jelly shoes.

Thursday, 16 July 2015

On our 5th day in Zante we decided to book a trip to the local island, famously known by the locals as Turtle Island. Initially, we wanted to hire a private boat to the island where we could drive to and relax for the day, however we were offered a a tour on a small glass-bottom boat where we would go turtle spotting followed by cave swimming, and an hour stop at the turtle island. As this was a cheaper option we opted for this choice which definitely proved to be the decision made on the holiday!! We managed to see metre long turtles swimming below us and swim up to the surface to catch air. It was such a surreal moment that I will never forget! The driver of the boat lead us to the other side of Zante Island where all the caves were, and we jumped off the boat and swam inside these caves. The water was incredibly blue and clear and definitely felt like we were in the Caribbean instead of a famously-known party island haha! For this day I decided to keep my outfit very simple and fuss free. I wore my blue and white tie-dye effect bikini, with a simple white tank top. It was in fact a sports wear top, but i liked the criss-cross back design so bought it in an extra large, so that it would just cover my bum!

Tuesday, 14 July 2015

On our third day in Zante, we booked ourselves a place on the VVIP Boat Party. It was one of my favourite days in Zante and I loved every second of the party. The boat sailed off around the island whilst everyone was busy dancing on the boat and having a good time. I knew that it was going to be very hot that day, especially when stuck on a boat with 100 other people. Therefore I wanted to wear something cooling, but looking good at the same time. Half way on the boat ride, the boat stops and allows everyone to jump off and into the sea and swim a short distance to a private beach cove, hence the reason I also wore my bikini. Even though in the images below my shoes cannot be seen, I chose to wear my ASOS standard black jelly shoes, as I find them incredibly comfortable and I can wear them in the sea (as I am a bit scared of the sea to be honest haha!!) Drinks were not included within the price of the purchase of the event, therefore I wore my trusty eBay black canvas bum bag, to hold my phone, money and also hotel keys, as well as a small compact hair brush and a mini sun cream. I thoroughly encourage anyone to go on a VVIP boat party as I honestly had the time of my life, and have many memories from this event!

Sunday, 12 July 2015

I recently went on my first girls holiday to a small island in Greece called Zante. It was one of my best holidays; full of laughter and fun activities/events. I will be posting a few short blog posts just to share with you a few of the events we done, but mainly showing what I wore on my holiday. Whilst on holiday I didn't think about doing blog posts on my outfits so I didn't take specific blog photos, however after scanning through my thousands of holiday pictures I have managed to find a small collection of photographs that show my outfits (as well as my friends outfits!!) Below are a few photos of what I wore on my second night out. It was always very hot whilst out on the main strip so I opted for these pastel baroque inspired tailored shorts with rose gold detail zips. I chose to wear a simple white crop top as well, which helped show off my tan as well (haha!!) The majority of my outfits were very basic due to the nature of our holiday (going out partying a lot of the time) as well as the restriction of 15kg suitcase allowance, which proved to be incredibly hard to stick to when travelling in a group of 8 18 year old girls. Under the photos I have mentioned where the garments are from, and tried to find similar currently available items.

Wednesday, 8 July 2015

After waiting years and years for the night, on Monday night I had my Leavers Prom. Now that I have officially finished school forever (which is actually really upsetting now that its happened haha) it was time to have my Leavers Ball. It was a lovely evening where we all dressed up in heels and long glamorous dresses, with the gorgeous background of Leeds Castle. Above I included some photos from the evening, which shows my make-up and hair (impressively which I done myself) and my outfit of the night. I chose so go a golden-pink slightly smokey eye, with a dewy skin look by wearing my favourite foundation; Giorgio Armani Maestro Fusion Foundation, and contouring and highlighting my face with the infamous Sleek Contour Kit. I also wore the Eyelure Volume Lashes No.100 which gave a really natural look but enhanced the eye makeup. I knew that I really wanted a red dress this year for prom, so when I saw this dress I immediately got it as fell in love with it. It had a mesh upper bodice, and then panels of large red fabric and thin strips of mesh again. There was a nude under-slip dress so it looked like skin but secretly wasn't. I really liked the body con style with the slight mermaid skirt which also had a large mesh panel to show off the shoes. I paired the dress with some silver diamonte platform shoes which I found on depop and a stunning glitter clutch bag to match the shoes.